Courtyard

When the weather moderates in the spring, people come to the Des Moines Art Center courtyard for lunch. A small cafe comprising maybe ten tables expands with outdoor seating. It's a cool, shady spot with a big reflecting pool, views into the galleries and a big bronze sculpture. 

Last week I spend an hour there, sketching the contribution of Richard Meier to the architecture of the Art Center. The original building, opened in 1948, was designed by Eero Saarinen, the renowned Finnish architect who designed many landmark buildings in the 1940s and 1950s. The second building, by I.M. Pei, who also designed the pyramid entrance of the Louvre, enclosed the courtyard on the south. The Meier building is much more than the cafe in the corner of the courtyard; it's about twice the size of the Pei but that part of the three story addition can't be seen inside the courtyard. 

"In the Courtyard," wc/ink on paper

This is a watercolor and ink sketch done similarly to many others. I begin with a graphite drawing, add watercolor, then ink and then more color if needed.  

The Painter

Most artists acknowledge many influences on their work, from their families to their home countries to mentors and masters from the past. In my case, one of mine is J.C. Leyendecker, an exceptional illustrator from a century or so ago. Leyendecker was an outstanding draftsman whose work is immediately recognizable once you know it. Today he is overshadowed by other famous illustrators--Norman Rockwell for example. I've studied Leyendecker's work and done a number of copies of his works, particularly interested in his brushwork and color palette. 

"Studies," J.C. Leyendecker

This is sourced from a Leyendecker illustration that can be found online showing an elderly painter in smock and beret, cooking a sausage over a charcoal stove. The artist is probably poor, surviving on not much. The work seems to have been intended as a wry comment on Thanksgiving and feasting. But the smock, beard, eyebrows and the figure itself were more interesting to me. Instead of an outright copy, I decided to use the master's work as a jumping off point. 

In my painting, the old painter is not cooking but instead is looking directly at us, the viewers, and holding out a loaded paintbrush. The implication intended is that we the viewers are the subject of his painting. As you can see below, my work owes a great deal to Leyendecker's but is an original idea superimposed on his.

"The Painter," oil on panel, 16x12, 2008. Private collection

 

Greening Iowa

The season seems to have turned at last. Days are longer, skies brighter, and crucially the world is greening. In the parks and along waterways, honeysuckle is lush and leafy. The grasses are that deep arresting green of springtime. And now the giants of the woods are greening at their tops. 

"Spring in Waterworks Park," wc/ink

The sketch group, mindful of new flowering in Waterworks Park, elected almost to the person to sketch there last week. The sun was bright but the wind was strong and cold. I sat on a bench in the sun, back to the wind, and drew this sketch in a fair bit of detail using pencil. When I got cold I went back to my car and inked the drawing while I warmed up then went back outside to paint. After that it was again time for the car and a few finishing grace notes with ink and paint. 

 

Mountain Study

"Mountain Study," oil on panel, 6x8

When you live here in the upper Midwest, you don't see mountains. There are big hills, even distant vistans, but no true mountains. Most of Iowa is rolling or flat plains. One of my personal exercises is to imagine other landscapes and other climes. Clearly, either photos or previous travels, or both, have been useful. 

In Mountain Study I was interested not only in the trees and colors but in depth. To suggest distant mountains meant light values and virtually no identifiable edges, with distant colors going bluer and bluer and more and more pale. Studies like this can translate into believable works on a much larger scale. 

Pappajohn Sculpture Park

 

"Sculpture Park View," wc/ink on paper

At the west end of downtown the Pappajohn Sculpture Park occupies almost five acres of parkland reclaimed during around of urban renewal over fifteen years ago. The Park was the brain child of the Pappajohns who also donated their expansive eollection of contemporary sculptures. The park was designed as a kind of outdoor museum, with :"rooms" made by berms and fencing, with serious consideration given to viewing experiences. The landscape architects considered views from cars passing on either side, views from the sidewalks, and views from the interior toward points of importance. 

A group of the Saturday sketchers went to the Sculpture Park last weekend. I sat on a bench and sketched the view toward the downtown skyline to the east, with several sculptures in view (and a few omitted here). The figure on the left is a a hare sitting on a boulder, "Thinker on a Rock" is by Barry Flanagan as an homage to Rodin's famous figure. A duplicate is in the National Gallery. Just it's right is a headless life size figure "Post Balzac," by Judith Shea, a sculptural allusion to Rodin's study for a monument to the famou French writer. And to the right of that is one of Louise Bourgeois' spiders, which is perhaps seven feet tall. The early spring colors are still muted but the grass is turning bright greens. 

Winter on the Creek

Although most of my current work is either oil or watercolor, in the past I've explored the use of casein. Casein paint is made using milk protein with oil to make an emulsion. The paint will keep well in sealed tubes and handles rather like oil, though it's water soluble and dries amazingly fast. In the decades before acrylic paint was introduced, casein (and also gouache) were go-to formulations because of convenience and speed. 

"Winter on the Creek," casein on board, 6x8

This particular work is yet another painting of Druid Hill Creek in winter. The view is similar to others posted in the past.  

Saturday

Last weekend was chilly and Saturday was a grey day. Nonetheless, spring is well along here--crocus and narcissi, forsythia all blooming or budding. The sketch group decided on Waterworks Park since the flowering trees in the arboretum are starting to bloom and along the river honeysuckle is almost out. 

"Bridge on the Raccoon," wc/ink, abt 5x10

Two Saturdays ago (March 31) the group went to the same destination. I did a panoramic sketch of the old bridge there that spans the Raccoon River. When we were there this time it occurred to me that doing a different view of the same subject might be instructive. Unlike two weeks ago, there was no one else there. I parked and did the sketch above. As ever, I began with a graphite sketch, laid in color, inked much of the bridge then refined color, value and edges. This took maybe an hour and a half.